Portside

University of Illinois graduate student workers went on strike Monday after last-minute negotiations over the weekend failed to end a protracted contract dispute that has lasted nearly a year.

Employers use lockouts to weaken unions. Lockouts sabotage the functioning of the union-management relationship, and they undermine standard and secure jobs in favour of more precariousness. Lockouts are also sometimes used to shift production from one plant or country to another, as well as to close unionized plants.

Union organizers in states like Tennessee are hoping to change that. Since 2010, the number of union members in Tennessee has grown from 115,000 to 155,000. Still, only 5.7 percent of Tennessee workers are members of a union.How To Patrick Green, even one new member is a big deal. Green is a president of Local 1235, which is part of the Amalgamated Transit Union in Nashville, Tennessee. In the three years that he has been leading the union, the local’s membership rate went up by 36 percent, despite being in a right-to-work state.

In the tumultuous 1970s, women and people of color streamed into unions, strikes swept the country — and employers launched a fierce counter-attack.

It’s actually illegal for teachers to strike in West Virginia. They’re doing it anyway. Thousands of public school teachers across West Virginia went on strike this week in protest over their pay and benefits, affecting more than 277,000 students.

Some companies are now using monitoring techniques—referred to as “people analytics”—to learn as much as they can about you, from your communication patterns to what types of websites you visit to how often you use the bathroom.

Leaders from the women’s and civil-rights movements, labor unions, environmental-justice groups, the religious community and others announced plans to mobilize in Foley Square on Feb. 24 during a massive, nationwide day of action. The Working People’s Day of Action, convened by the workers’-rights organization Jobs With Justice, will include events in dozens of cities across the country, according to the New York State AFL-CIO.

Power depends on correlation of strength. The bourgeoisie and its minions use the judicial power to suit their interests as if this was a monarchy, with no oversight by society. They trampled on the Constitution in order to reach their goals. The working class has only one space where it can exert its political power: mobilization on the streets.

Congress must decide whether to rescue these funds with low-cost loans, force them to cut benefit payments or let the funds go bankrupt and wipe out retirees’ entire pensions.

Despite campaign rhetoric, the Trump presidency has consistently attacked workers and worker rights.